Boise State Rocket League player Emiliano Flores, known by his gamertag as “Durtho”, is one of the newest additions to the Boise State Rocket League team, and arguably already one of the most noteworthy. Flores won multiple accolades for his performance with the Broncos during his rookie year. This article will go over none of them. Instead, this article focuses on five completely unrelated random facts you might not have known about Durtho!
Fact 1: Durtho is 4 Years Old
Technically speaking, Durtho has only had four true birthdays. That’s because he is one of five million people worldwide, (or less than 0.1 percent of the world population) that was born on Febraury 29th. Flores was born Febrary 29th, 2004 and had a birthday in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. People who are born on leap days are called “Leaplings”. According to the BBC, being born on Februrary 29 is a 1 in 1,461 chance; and people who are born on that date are statistically less common than people born with 11 fingers. Durtho will be turning 5 next year.
Fact 2: He’s Very VERY Strong
Okay, maybe this fact is pretty obvious for anybody who has actually seen Durtho, but the exact numbers quantifying exactly how strong he is are more unknown. Durtho set a high school record for bench-pressing when he was 16 (non leap year age). He benched 335 lbs with himself weighing 215 lbs at the time. For those that insist on using metric that’s roughly 152 kg benched while weighing 97.5 kg. And for those of you reading in Britian, thats 24 stone benched while he weighed 15 stone.
Fact 3: We Need to Talk About Durtho’s Hands
Durtho plays Rocket League with a grip known as the “claw” grip. In a normal gaming grip, both thumbs are used to reach the joysticks and buttons on the controller, while the index fingers rest on the shoulder buttons. But in claw grip, the index finger stretches (against natures wishes) to hit the buttons instead of the thumb. This grip does not adhere to best practices for maintaining joint health. It is recommended that all manicurists and doctors specialising in treating joint inflammation look away from the demonstartion in the picture below.
Amazingly enough, this is only the second most interesting fact regarding Durtho’s hands. Most interesting is that he washes his hands before playing every game/match. According to him, this is completely placebo.
Fact 4: His Favorite Food is Ramen
Upon first hearing this you might think Durtho isn’t doing the broke college student sterotype any favors. But actually, he is referring to the traditional type of Japanese ramen that one might order at a restaurant. Durtho’s favorite place to get ramen is the “Little Tokyo” district of Los Angeles. Little Tokyo is the center of one of the largest Japanese-American populations in the US and the birthplace of sushi in the states.
Fact 5: Durtho Collects Manga
Durtho has a collection of manga valued in the thousands of dollars. Some full sets that he’s aquired took over two years to find. All of his manga is stored on a dedicated shelf in his home along with a few figurines to round out the collection.
Hopefully these facts were just as exciting as Durtho’s gameplay is on stage. You can watch Durtho and the rest of the Rocket League team on Boise State Esports Twitch and Youtube pages.
Written by Jacob Palmer